Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes

In every good marriage, it helps sometimes to be a little deaf.

My mother was very strong about my doing well in school and living up to my potential.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: For both men and women the first step in getting power is to become visible to others, and then to put on an impressive show. . . . As women achieve power, the barriers will fall. As society sees what women can do, as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we’ll all be better off for it.XII

Less than 3 percent of positions in the federal government at and above GS-16 rank are held by women.8

(A sense of humor is helpful for those who would advance social change.)

And I give you this picture because it fairly captures our nearly fifty-year happy marriage, during which I have offered up an astonishing number of foolish pronouncements with absolute assurance, and Ruth, with only limited rancor, has ignored almost every one. A

Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance ones ability to persuade.

Once asked how we could be friends, given our disagreement on lots of things, Justice Scalia answered: 'I attack ideas. I don't attack people.

nascent, underfunded Supreme Court. Recent biographies of the great Chief Justice tell how John Marshall used the camaraderie of boardinghouse tables and common rooms, also madeira, to dispel dissent and achieve the one-voiced Opinion of the Court, which he usually composed and delivered himself. The unanimity John Marshall strived to maintain helped the swordless Third Branch fend off attacks from the political branches.9 Although Chief Justice Marshall strictly separated his Court and family life, he did not lack affection for his wife. In a letter from Philadelphia in 1797, John Marshall told Polly of his longing. “I like [the big city] well enough for a day or two,” he wrote Polly, “but I then

As you leave here and proceed along life's paths, try to leave tracks. Use the education you have received to help repair tears in your communities. Take part in efforts to move those communities, your nation, and our world closer to the conditions needed to ensure the health and well-being of your generation and generations following your own.

certain hallmarks of her legal writing and thought — her care in choosing words, her wariness of politically motivated prosecution, her concern that shortcuts in the name of efficiency often reduce effectiveness in the long run, and her unswerving commitment to individual rights and the presumption of innocence — shone through even in that first letter to her college newspaper.

One is that we were betraying our most fundamental values, and, two, that legal skills could help make things better, could help to challenge what was going on.” 3

exuberant presence of Justice Scalia, the Court is “a paler place.” The two cases at the top of Justice Ginsburg’s most

Explaining why she entered the race, [Belva Lockwood] wrote in a letter to her future running mate, Marietta Stow: 'We shall never have equal rights until we take them, nor equal respect until we command it.

Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.